My daughter was just hired by a firm in Reston, Virginia. If you live or work in that area, I’d appreciate knowing what you like and dislike about it. She’s particularly interested in facts about housing, such as good and bad areas, prices, and availibility to public transit. She has a car, but would prefer to leave the driving to someone else.
Also, what’s there to do in that area? Currently, she hangs out with a group of folks her own age and they mostly play D&D and watch anime and such. She’d love to know of the best book and used book stores in the area too.
Its the NoVa burbs… my general impression of which is that they are soul-destroyingly dull. Other than that, the only thing I can say for sure is that Reston has its own strain of Ebola named after it! Which is not transmittable to humans. Read all about it in the book The Hot Zone.
Housing it outrageously expensive. Your normal everyday home will be around the $500k mark. Decent apartments are $1500/month and up. Condos will be around $400k.
The area is very beautiful and very manicured, but beware: It’s Strip-Mall, Chain Restaurant Suburban Hell. There are very few family-owned businesses, so good food is hard to find and nightlife is almost non-existent. There are also TONS of apartment complexes and tons of office parks.
If she’s a fan of Chinese food, tell her she’s going to be very unhappy here on that front.
I lived in Reston for the last four years, and I’d recommend against it. It’s pretty much the suburbs, so it’s really centered around people raising children. All the other young people in the DC metro area live a lot closer to they city, so she’d probably be much happier living in Arlington or northwest DC. In theory, you can get around by public transportation, but I’d definitely want a car for going from Arlington to Reston and back.
Life in Northern Virginia is very expensive, so she should be prepared for that. Housing’s the worst part, but nothing else is cheap.
In a shopping center off Wiehle, a little south of Lake Anne, there’s a pretty nice Chinese restaurant by the name of Ma Ma Wok. It’s reasonably inexpensive, and the food is great. You should definitely check it out.
Isn’t that on like North Shore Drive? I’ve been there and to be honest, I thought it was just OK. But then again, I’m used to Boston area Chinese food (very different).
Its a suburb of DC. I don’t know that there is much to do over there in terms of nightlife. I’m sure that there is a Barnes and Noble but otherwise I have no idea.
Are the prices that high out there? I admit I’m not that familiar with the area but those condo prices strike me as being rather too high.
As for public transit, there are buses but Metro doesn’t run that far. I personally wouldn’t want to live there without a car. That being said, it is rather affluent and pretty safe. Reston probably won’t have much in the way of small businesses and an independent book shop but there aren’t too many of those left in the area as well.
If I were a younger person in her shoes, I would rather live in Arlington and commute to Reston but that entails spending a decent amount of time in a car every day and having a smaller, potentially more expensive place.
In terms of public transportation. if she’s willing to wait 8 years, the metro will run out there. There are a few busses, but really, there’s not much public transportation out that far.
There’s nothing but busses that go to Reston. Reston is a planned community, built in the 70s or something, and is spread out and not very interesting. But it’s not any sort of hellhole, as people who dislike suburbs tend to hyperbolize. It’s actually pretty nice for the most part, because having trees, bike trails, etc. was part of the original plan. Mostly, it’s not one of those “mow down all the trees and pack in as many McMansions and townhouses as possible” type of places.
I’d reccommend she live closer in if she want’s to socialize/have fun, though. She would have to drive to work, but we’re talking maybe 10 miles, so it’s no biggie. If you look at a map, you’ll see that Reston is about 20 miles west of DC, so somewhere in between isn’t going to be very far. There’s Tyson’s Corner, Vienna, Falls Church, McLean and Arlington to choose from between Reston & DC. While it’s going to be shockingly expensive, that’s actually a good thing, because it keeps out the riff-raff, and it’s going to be safe and well-served. It’s a good place to live, IMHO. Plus, once she gets established, she’ll alway be able to find another job in a better location. Another plus is that there are jobs here. We have a great job market, unlike many parts of the country.
I’ve lived in Reston since 2003, and have lived in the area since 1998. Reston is upper-middle-class suburbia, and everyone else has pretty much nailed it – and yes, Caffeine.addict, condo prices are really that high (unfortunately).
I really like living here: it’s attractive and safe, it’s convenient to work, it’s just a 15-minute drive to the nearest Metro station, and I don’t care much about nightlife. Reston Town Center has a movie theatre, stores, and various restaurants (and a bar or two), and that’s pretty much all my boyfriend and I need on a Friday/Saturday night. I could never afford to buy a place here, though, which is why I’m still renting at the age of 35 (my 2BR townhouse is $1400/mo, which is on the cheap side).
There aren’t really any “bad” Reston neighborhoods, but some bordering neighborhoods (in Herndon) can be a little iffy. Herndon is kinda like NYC in that regard: you can be fine one minute in a neighborhood, but cross the street and you maybe feel the need to walk a little faster. (I’m not really picking on Herndon: I know of other DC 'burbs that are the same way, including my boyfriend’s neighborhood.)
There used to be a great used bookstore in Herndon, but now the nearest one I know of is out by the airport (about 20 minutes away). As previously mentioned, there aren’t many indepenent anythings out here – it’s almost entirely chains.
To me across the river, when I google Reston=good in my mind I get that Reston basically equals Wolf Trap which can be very (very) cool.
Like Helloagain says, & I know it is not a thing to tell a Mom or her going away daughter, but when I google of “Reston=bad” in my mind I recall the book “HotZone” which is in part about the time when monkeys with Ebola were found at a facility in Reston in the 80’s and yes there is a disease called Ebola Reston.
But Arky is right really - I think most younger people live closer to the City or would prefer to. Traffic is always bad and that is just a fact of life - but living Arlingtonish and working in Reston is at least against the flow of traffic at rush hour.
If your daughter isn’t used to the hyper type-A, waspy, nose-in-the-air, nimby lifestyle that the DC Metro Area offers, it’s going to be a massive culture shock. Statments like
are immensely indicative of the general mentality of people in the area. Your daughter might be surprised when she’s viewed and treated as “riff raff” because she makes less than six figures and doesn’t drive a beamer.
Well, gosh. It’s a good thing I only live near Reston - wouldn’t want to get any of that on me! Over-dramatize much? And to answer the OP - I do agree that living in Reston might not be the best for her if she is young.
My favorite used book store is in Manassas - McKay’s . A fairly large selection of books.
Reston was one of the first master planned communities developed after WWII. Unlike Levittown, it is a mixture of housing, office, commercial, and cultural uses all developed around a central design and community concept. While it is technically located in Fairfax County, it is almost entirely an enclave unto itself.
Like almost everywhere else in the DC suburbs (either MD or VA), prices for housing are expensive. The DC Metro is growing, but doesn’t serve Reston proper. Depending on where she’s going to work and live, though, the commute could be practically non-existent. The whole point of the planned community is to have work/live/play all within a close distance.
While prices are high, so are incomes. Fairfax County routinely has some of the highest median incomes in the state and the job market is very stable.
As was pointed out, Reston has a large population of families and the goods and services are oriented toward that demographic. She shouldn’t have much trouble finding like-minded people, though - the DC suburbs are jammed packed with people. She may want to find a place relatively close to work, get to know the area, and then use it as a base to move around. If she’s got any skills at all she’ll be able to find a job and she can then move to more urban areas (Alexandria and Arlington come to mind on the VA side) to suit her tastes.
Yeah, there are neighborhoods like that, but I was referring more to the fact that in order to live somewhere where you don’t have to have bars on your doors and windows and buy groceries through a bulletproof glass, you’re going to have to spend a shitload of money.
There’s a tremendous disparity here, almost like a third-world country. Part of that is because there’s practically no blue collar jobs except construction. No factories, no industry for gray-collar types (field engineers, etc.). So you have poor neighborhoods and you have well-to-do neighborhoods and a gigantic chasm in between, for the most part, and demand is so high for what little exists in between that it’s as expensive as rich neighborhoods.
My sis and her husband lived there for a few years. His family still lives there. The cheapest apartment you can find is over $1,000 a month for a somewhat crappy 2 bedroom. It’s hard to find gas stations or car washes, they don’t want you to see stuff like that. Overall not a bad area if you like living in the burbs, but not me.
Well, we knew it was going to be expensive, we’ve done some research. She has accepted a position at Raytheon and will start at about 70K, if that has any bearing on this thread. She’s 28, and so it’s time (and past time) for her to leave the nest, but I’ll sure miss her.
Are you high? I never found Northern VA to be particularly snobbier than other similarly affluent places. For the most part, people aren’t all that snobby and for every fancy luxury car, I see at least four or five that aren’t luxury cars. Weirdly enough, I don’t think I see all that many Beemers around. Most of the snobby set seem to drive Mercedes.
An Arky is sort of right regarding the lack of solidly middle class areas. Where I am in DC is an oddly mixed neighborhood that is changing and the mix of old and new is at times amusing and at other times almost puzzling.
People are spoiled and snobby up there. We went to a restaurant in Reston and when people were told there was a ~15 minute wait for a table, they huffed like they couldn’t believe they were being treated that way.
I was born and raised two towns away (Sterling - about 8 miles west).
If her office is in Reston, and she lives in Reston, there may be a chance she could live within walking or biking distance from her work. The area around Reston Town Center has a lot of condos and is designed to be pedestrian-friendly to enable people to walk to work. I also think there is a bus system that runs through Reston.
Yes it is expensive but if she is making $70K, she will be fine.
It is kind of dull (think: a lot of young families) and it is definitely suburbanified (think: generic condos, prefab cookie-cutter houses, chain restaurants.)
I live in the Arlington/Alexandria area which is a lot closer to the city and (IMHO) is a better area for single people, and has more interesting stuff to do. If she lived in Arlington, her commute would be going against traffic and against the HOV lane restrictions, so that could be good (although it would still be at least a 30-minute commute).
I could never afford to buy a place here, though, which is why I’m still renting at the age of 35 (my 2BR townhouse is $1400/mo, which is on the cheap side).